


Will be Alright

by myxstorie, orphan_account



Category: Bandage (2010), Gokusen - All Media Types, Japanese Actor RPF, Japanese Drama, Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-10
Updated: 2010-01-10
Packaged: 2018-02-09 22:55:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2001108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myxstorie/pseuds/myxstorie, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For <a href="http://razberrycreme.livejournal.com/">razberrycreme</a> for <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fje-holiday.livejournal.com%2F&ei=zDvOU423FPG10QXE64HoBw&usg=AFQjCNHDPaGG4fstQfrRwsFEjjiq3DlYXg&bvm=bv.71198958,d.d2k">hols '09</a> ^^ An unending amount of thanks to Rin for all the hand-holding and prompting when I was stuck in a rut ^^</p><p>Podfic by <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/IrisAya">iris_aya</a>, <a href="http://je-podfic.livejournal.com/21618.html">here</a> ♥</p>
            </blockquote>





	Will be Alright

**Author's Note:**

  * For [razberrycreme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/razberrycreme/gifts).



It's hot and stuffy, the air heavy with the smell of smoke and sweat and alcohol, and it takes Ryu a moment to blink and remember what these places are like. He's not been in such a seedy club since he was much younger, more adventurous, and wasn't, well. Alone.

He can't see them, the darkness and the smoke concealing all of the club's occupants from view, but he knows they're in here - there are only so many clubs in the heart of the city that would let underage kids in, and Ryu's knows them all. This is the only one left.

Drawing in a deep breath, he starts to wriggle his way through the mass of bodies, glad he'd changed before leaving – there’s no way his suit would have been able to survive. The smell of alcohol gets stronger, and he hopes that's because he's heading in the direction of the bar, and not just because the people are getting more drunk as he delves deeper into the fray.

The band appear on stage when Ryu thinks he must be nearly half way through, and that only makes it harder to move, the writhing mass pressing even closer as a slow, heavy beat starts pounding through them, hips swaying and rocking as the vocalist begins to sing.

His voice makes Ryu pause, something so soft and seductive that he can't help but look to see what kind of creature is producing such a sound.

The moment he lays eyes on him, all thoughts of his students and the risk of their suspension flee, replaced only with variations of _oh my God_ and _I must be dreaming_ and _Hayato can sing?!_ Never mind wondering when he got back into the country and why he hadn't mailed to say he'd gotten bored of LA's beaches and nightclubs and girls, he's _here_ and he's singing and doing a damn good job of it, too.

The more he looks, however, the more differences he notices. The last time Hayato had sent him photos, he'd been able to see that his time in LA and a love for life had given him slightly rounded cheeks, and for possibly the first time ever, Ryu could see the sparkle of a smile in his eyes, creasing the corners and curling one side of his lip. When he looks into the eyes of this person up on stage, all he sees is passion and emotion, and, if he looks closely, a hint of sadness. Hayato's certainly not chubby, but he fills out his clothes in a way this skinny form wouldn't even if he didn't wear them all three sizes too big. They’ve both left their hair to grow, but Hayato’s brushes his shoulders and curls wildly around his face, several inches longer and a few shades darker than the vocalist's own style.

But, if Ryu doesn't look quite so closely, looks at the colour of the eyes, the nose, mouth, jaw line, the hands, then he can't be sure what's Hayato and what's... not. He stares for a long moment, one immovable rock in an ocean of movement, before the part of his mind that never really stopped listening for trouble picks out a shout, a jeer. He gets a nasty feeling in the pit of his stomach, the same feeling he'd get when he was about to turn the corner and find Hayato in a bloody pulp, and decides that this intriguing stranger can wait, pushing his way through the crowd with a little more force now until he finally, blissfully, breaks free of the mob.

Only to be faced with another.

“Oi!” He shouts, and a big, burly looking kid with a Mohawk and a nose ring turns away from where he’d been backing one of Ryu’s students up against the wall.

“You got a problem, shrimp?”

Ryu’s lip curls automatically in distaste, and he forces it to smooth out, face carefully neutral.

“Leave them alone.”

The kid laughs, and the sound grates on Ryu’s nerves like chalk on a blackboard.

"What's it to you?"

Ryu raises an eyebrow, and the ringleader and two of his chunky cronies advance on him as the rest of them form a half-circle, blocking his students in.

"They're my students," he shrugs.

They laugh, heads tossed back, and Ryu dimly remembers that baring any part of the body like that, especially somewhere as weak as the throat, is generally considered a bad idea.

"Hear that, boys? These pussies can't even deal with us themselves, they've gotta get their _teacher_ to save their sorry asses."

Ryu scoffs, "You can do what you like to them, so long as they turn up for class tomorrow. I couldn't care less about you and your little minions."

Later, he realises that it's probably not such a good idea to taunt the enemy when out-muscled and outnumbered.

-

From his vantage point on stage, it had been impossible for Natsu not to notice the scuffle that had broken out – it’s not surprising, really, it’s a good night when no-one goes home with a black eye or a bloody nose. What is surprising, however, is to find one of the participants sitting, hunched over on a bar stool, with a glass of strong-looking liquor clasped between his hands.

Swiping his beer from the bartender with a nod, Natsu turns to lean back against the bar.

“You’re still here? I thought they’d have thrown you out.”

The other man looks up and seems to do a small double-take, before lowering his eyes to his glass again, “He punched me.”

“And you punched him back,” Natsu drawls.

He raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow, “Shouldn’t you have been paying attention to your audience?”

With a grin, Natsu takes a sip of his drink, “What can I say, I’m just amazing like that.”

The other man snorts, “You even talk just like him.”

“Who?”

He shakes his head, as if he hadn’t meant to say it aloud, “No-one.”

“I see. Do you make it a habit to get into fights with kids?” Natsu continues, unaffected, and the other man laughs through his nose.

“Not anymore.”

Nodding like he understands, Natsu takes another long drink, and offers no more conversation as he watches the other man out of the corner of his eye, drawing damp circles on the surface of the bar with the bottom of his glass. Even with the swelling around his eye and the blood on his lip, he’s still got a prettier face than Natsu is used to seeing on other men, with his high, sculpted cheekbones and smooth, clear skin.

“I’m Natsu,” he says eventually, when the silence has gone on too long to stand, and holds out his hand.

The other man looks at it and purses his lips, which Natsu thinks makes them look even softer, before facing forward again.

“Odagiri.”

“Do you have a first name, Odagiri?”

His jaw works silently for a moment, and Natsu barely suppresses his smirk; he likes how it feels, knowing he’s getting under his skin.

“Ryu.”

-

A few nights later, Ryu finds himself back at the same bar, identical drink in hand. He's not there for any particular reason (even though he'd ditched the colleagues he'd had plans with and had travelled twenty minutes out of his way to get here) and he certainly isn't looking for anyone (he _didn't_ feel his heart sink a little when the band on stage were fronted by a female vocalist), he's just here for a drink because it's quiet, despite the thrum of the bass pounding against his skull.

"Back so soon?"

Ryu nearly falls off his stool, and it's only a strong hand on his shoulder that keeps the floor from enjoying his drink.

"What are you doing here?"

"This is my bar," Natsu sniffs, already half way through his beer, "Besides, you don't look like the sort of guy who comes to places like this."

Ryu doesn't need to ask what he means by that - the peeling paint and the gruff clientele explain more than enough - but he does wonder what makes Natsu think he's, for want of a better term, better than this.

He doesn't need to ask that either, though, because Natsu's feeling far more talkative than the first time they'd met.

"That shirt probably costs more than my whole outfit," he says, and Ryu purses his lips.

"Probably."

Natsu raises an eyebrow, and the corner of his lip twitches in amusement, but he says nothing.

After a while, Ryu starts feeling uncomfortable and, after getting another drink, he swallows and clears his throat.

"Your bar, huh?"

Natsu hums affirmatively.

"You don't look old enough to own a bar."

With a brusque laugh, Natsu slides his empty glass across the bar.

"I don't _own_ it. I come here whenever we're not playing, and I live close by. To someone like you," he says, but there's no malice in it, "It's my bar.

"But," he continues, hopping up onto the stool next to Ryu, "I reckon you can stick around. You don't seem so bad."

Ryu snorts, but fails at sounding quite as disgusted as he wants to.

Maybe he's going soft.

Several hours and one drink too many later, Natsu looks up from where he'd been trying to explain the finer points of a guitar to Ryu only using beer mats and empty glasses.

"Hey, do you drive? The last train left like, an hour ago."

Ryu looks at his watch and swears, tipping his head back and groaning in frustration.

"That'd be a no, then, huh?" Natsu grins, and Ryu forgets how much he'd begun to warm towards the other man over the course of the evening in favour of the urge to punch him in the face.

"You'll have to get a taxi," Natsu goes on, oblivious to Ryu's rapidly deepening death glare, "Man, they cost a fortune. I hope you've got enough cash on you!"

"Thank you for your assertiveness," Ryu grinds out, although he's sure it's not as clear as it sounds in his head. Whatever that green stuff was had been a mistake, "What would I do without you."

"Well, you'd be spending a fortune trying to get home, for one thing," Natsu says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world, and Ryu frowns.

"Eh?"

"I told you I live close by, remember. I've got a couch - it's not very comfy, but it's cheaper than trying to get home this late."

Ryu runs his tongue over his teeth, unsure of what to say. On the one hand, Natsu seems nice enough - straightforward, friendly, what-you-see-is-what-you-get - but Ryu has to wonder if he's only this comfortable because of the other man's striking resemblance to his best friend. They were, ultimately, practically strangers.

But then Natsu looks up at him from beneath the messy brown hair in his eyes, and Ryu sees so much in his eyes that hadn't been there before all the alcohol - vulnerability, loneliness... and... what _is_ that? - and before he really knows what he's doing, he's nodding his thanks with a small smile.

-

It turns out Natsu's place is much closer than he'd originally thought.

"You said you lived 'nearby' not right upstairs!"

"Is that a problem?"

Ryu shakes his head, no, and feels Natsu's hand on his hip, steadying him as he climbs up the stairs. It feels like a bit of a pretence, but Ryu finds he rather likes the warmth through his jeans, and doesn't ask him to let go when they reach the top.

Natsu doesn't.

He doesn't let go as he struggles to unlock the door with one hand, he doesn't let go as it slams behind them, and he doesn't let go as he turns Ryu to face him.

Suddenly, that extra little something in his eyes isn't quite so hard to read anymore.

-

It’s just his luck, Ryu realises, to find a cuddler.

Natsu's still shuddering and breathing heavily into his hair, shoulders heaving, hair sticking to his face and Ryu's cheek, but the arms around him feel nice, comforting, warm, so Ryu doesn't let go, just hangs with arms tight around Natsu's neck.

Natsu continues to cuddle as he carries Ryu to the bedroom and falls onto the bed with him, snuggling up next to him on sheets that have probably seen better days, but seem clean, at least. Ryu thinks about sneaking out once Natsu’s fallen asleep, but the other man has one arm locked firmly around his waist and really, if he did leave, he’d have nowhere to go anyway.

As he struggles out of his clothes and tugs at the blanket in an attempt to at least keep some semblance of modesty about his person, Ryu glances down at Natsu’s face, soft and peaceful and innocent in his sleep, and tries to ignore the pull in his chest that he doesn’t want to admit is the real reason he stays.

-

Ryu’s alone when he wakes the next morning, blankets wrapped around himself in a cocoon of warmth with the wondrous smell of coffee drifting under his nose. He feels like a girl as he stands, keeping the blanket tucked around his body, but it’s better than the half-naked alternative, and he rakes the fingers of his free hand through his hair as he seeks out the source.

Natsu’s in the kitchen slumped over the counter as the coffee machine filters mouth-watering black coffee into the pot. Ryu’s head feels better than he thinks it should after how much he’d had to drink last night, but Natsu doesn’t appear to be so lucky, cradling his forehead in his hands. He’s wearing pyjama pants now, instead of the jeans he’d fallen asleep in, but nothing else, the lean muscles of his arms and back stretched taught, showing off the tattoo that covers his left arm and leading up to a mess of unkempt hair that Ryu finds strangely endearing.

“Morning,” He offers, voice slightly hoarse, and Natsu flinches like it burns.

“Too loud,” he whines, and waves vaguely in the direction of the coffee machine, “Gotta ‘ve coffee...”

It takes a lot of effort, but Ryu manages to keep his laughter at to a minimum.

Three cups of coffee and some painkillers later, and Natsu’s looking almost human again. He doesn’t offer to make breakfast, but Ryu isn’t particularly hungry anyway, more focused on how everything between them feels so comfortable, so _normal_. He’d blame it on Hayato, but Hayato is a completely different person to Natsu, and he’s finding it easier and easier to see past the initial similarities in their appearance with the differences in their personalities. Hayato has a quick temper, he’s stubborn, quick to judge and excruciatingly slow to forgive, whereas Ryu thinks if Natsu were any more laid back, he’d be horizontal. When he’d left, Hayato had still walked with that lazy swagger, unconsciously challenging anyone to step up and try and stop him, but when he’s not up on stage, not in the spotlight, Natsu trudges and drags his feet, hands shoved deep into his pockets, keeping a careful distance from the rest of the world. Although America had opened him up, Hayato still has layers of bravado and anger that have to be broken through to find out what he’s really like, to spot the trust and generosity and honour that he hides away. With Natsu, on the other hand, it seems like he’s the person he wants to be, and it doesn’t matter to him if anyone else approves or not, because, take it or leave it, he isn’t going to change.

When Ryu leaves, it’s with a pair of Natsu’s sweatpants hanging low on his hips and Natsu’s number in his phone. Leaving his clothes there to be washed and picked up later had been Natsu’s idea, but Ryu hadn’t tried to argue.

-

Ryu doesn’t remember the last time he was so reckless, getting involved with someone like this, but after so long training for his teaching certificate, of toeing the line and setting a good example, it feels good to finally let go again.

They spend more nights together than apart, and as much as Ryu tries to tell himself that it's because Natsu's a guilty, guilty pleasure, the more often the other man falls asleep next to him, the more often Ryu listens to his soft, even breaths, feels his warm skin and watches his nose wrinkle as he dreams, the clearer it becomes that it’s not just Natsu's body that keeps him coming back.

He’s never been one to fight his feelings, and although it feels wrong to fall so fast for someone like Natsu, whenever he wakes first and sees Natsu’s eyes flutter open, all his worries are forgotten in the face of the things he sees in Natsu’s eyes.

They might be rushing, Ryu thinks, picking up a spare toothbrush and Natsu’s favourite brand of shampoo when he’s out shopping, but he’s never been happier. Ryu’s mother probes and questions him about his ‘new girlfriend’, claiming he has a new skip in his step, and Natsu thinks it’s hilarious when Ryu tells him of how he’d had to fob her off with promises of introducing her to the special person in his life when they aren’t so busy. Ryu kicks him, and when Natsu falls off the sofa, Ryu decides they’re even.

For once, life is good. Work is treating him properly, his students are behaving as well as can be expected, his family are happy and now, four days out of the week, Ryu arrives home to find Natsu cradling his guitar and singing softly on his couch, occasionally scribbling things down on scraps of paper. The other three days, Natsu will meet him at work; the first time Ryu had seen him, slumped back against the railings outside the school gates with his hood pulled low over his head while he ignored the stares of the students that walked past, he’d been unable to hide his smile, leading some of the more nosey kids to try and pry information out of him. They’d stopped the moment Natsu had looked up; he doesn’t smile much himself, but when he’s happy, his eyes sparkle in a way that makes Ryu’s heart skip a beat every time he sees it. As Natsu falls into step beside him and offers one of his headphones, he’ll nudge Ryu with his elbow, and when Ryu pushes him back with a smile, the corner of his lips always twitches slightly.

Yeah, life is good.

-

Life continues in such a way for several weeks, and the crisp, brightly-coloured leaves begin to fall from the trees, crunching underfoot as autumn turns to winter. It’s the first day Ryu breaks out his scarf when it happens, and he’s wrapping it around his neck and getting ready to leave, when Sawatari corners him in the teachers’ lounge.

Sawatari rarely speaks to him, still very obviously bitter about the stress Ryu and his friends had caused when they were still at school, and Ryu’s stomach twists anxiously.

“Is something wrong, Sir?”

Sawatari’s expression shifts awkwardly, eyebrows drawing together and relaxing before his mouth twists unpleasantly, like Ryu is a nasty taste on the tip of his tongue.

“That rough boy that waits for you outside, who is he?”

Ryu bites his tongue and stops himself from bristling at the phrasing, “He’s a friend.”

“Just a friend?” Sawatari leers over the top of his glasses, “Because the students don’t seem to think so.”

“With all due respect, Sir,” Ryu says, as calmly as he can manage, “The students love to gossip.”

“It is the students’ gossip that gives a school its reputation, and I will not have someone like _him_ ,” Sawatari’s face screws up in distaste, making him look even more unpleasant than usual, “Ruining things for this school.”

Taking a step closer, Sawatari draws his shoulders back and stands up to his full height, quiff wobbling dangerously, “I can make life _very_ hard for you, Odagiri, and after all the trouble you have been to me, I won’t hesitate to do so. You will not see him again. If I hear you’ve been so much as glimpsed together, you don’t need to bother coming back to this school, or any other. Is that clear?”

-

Ryu leaves through the back entrance. He ignores his phone, and instead of going home, he finds himself huddled under the climbing frames in the park he’d frequented as a teenager. He wishes he’d never given Natsu that key; at least then he’d be able to hide at home, inside.

He sits there for hours, dreaming up every possible scenario, even going to far as to think that maybe, maybe Natsu and his band will make it big, maybe he won’t even need his job. But Yankumi had put sweat, blood and tears – literally – into getting this position for him, and there was no way he could just throw it all away.

Long after the sun has disappeared, just as his cell phone’s battery is about to die, he sends Natsu a mail.  
 _  
I don’t want to see you anymore._

_I’ll leave your things behind the bar._

_Don’t contact me again._  
  
He reads it over and over and over again, staring at the stark black letters on the screen, and Ryu knows that when he hits send, it’s not the cold that makes his hands shake.

-

As expected, Natsu doesn’t make it easy. He’s respectful enough to push Ryu’s spare key through the letterbox, but he calls so often that Ryu ends up turning his phone off, and when he tires of that, he tries to catch Ryu on his way to and from school, hanging about by the school gates even more than before.

Ryu just arrives earlier and leaves later, using the back entrance, and hopes he won’t keep it up. Seeing Natsu’s face so hopeful every day only makes it hurt even more.

The gossiping increases tenfold, especially when the girls’ school opposite starts to take notice of him, too. Natsu ignores their short skirts and fluttering eyelashes, looking over their heads nonchalantly to try and spot Ryu as he leaves, and the way he doesn’t even try to hide his disinterest in them only makes the rumours worse – closer to the truth.

Sawatari’s furious, but Ryu’s insistence that he’s doing as he was asked – and a few harsh words from Yankumi – mean he still has his job. He’s struggling to do any actual teaching, though; his students are ruthless in their speculations and questions and taunts, far more interested in finding out the truth - or making up the most exciting, fabricated tale they can – than learning anything from him.

“Get rid of him!” Sawatari hisses one afternoon, when a crowd is starting to gather around Natsu, “Get rid of him this instant, or you’re fired!”

Although Natsu’s face doesn’t change considerably when he sees Ryu heading in his direction, he can see his eyes light up, and it makes Ryu ache. Sending Natsu away is the hardest thing he’s ever done, lies he’d promised never to tell spilling from his mouth and leaving a bitter taste behind, saying things like _I don’t want to see you,_ and _stay away from me_ , and, when Natsu had glared and told Ryu to stop lying, _I’m seeing someone else._ The look in Natsu’s eyes then, so lost and confused and betrayed, more than anything else, had totally broken his heart.

Natsu stops calling, stops waiting at the school gates, and Ryu misses him presence so much more than before. He misses seeing him after school; even though he’d been avoiding him, it still gave Ryu a form of peace of mind to see that Natsu was still there, was still healthy. He misses seeing him on the couch after work, misses the sound of the guitar as he makes dinner, misses the melody of Natsu’s voice in the shower, the smell of him on the sheets. Ryu misses everything, from things as big as the way Natsu felt above and below him, to things as small as the sound of his footsteps on the pavement and the way he always left his toothbrush on the side of the sink instead of in the cup. Ryu starts leaving it out in the hope it’ll make him feel better, washes himself in Natsu’s shower gel, plays one of Natsu’s demo tapes he’d forgotten to give back, but it’s not the same. It ends up making him feel worse.

He only sleeps when his body is too physically exhausted to stay awake any longer, because he haunts his dreams every night, and whether Natsu is smiling and touching him the way Ryu misses so much, or is angry and throwing punches and harsh words, Ryu wakes feeling even more drained than when he’d gone to bed.

It shows on his face, in the grey bags under his eyes and the sallow, pallid colour of his skin, in his body, getting even skinnier by the day until his clothes barely cling onto his nonexistent hips anymore, and in his demeanour, barely able to keep _himself_ awake during his lessons, let alone his students. His patience is shot, he glares and snaps and shouts, and although it keeps his students in line, it’s not him.

Ryu’s family try and make him feel better with their ‘plenty more fish in the sea’ approach, arranging goukons and omiais for him left, right and centre, but he doesn’t go, and after the seventh angry father turns up on their doorstep, they stop trying. His friends are all too busy with their own jobs and families now to be able to do much more than take him out for a drink every now and then, and as much as he enjoys drowning himself in alcohol, they never let him drink enough to forget. He even overhears Yankumi arguing with Sawatari about him, but only listens in long enough for Sawatari to make it clear that he’s just looking for a reason to fire him.

-

Tokyo’s beautiful at Christmas, but Ryu barely sees the twinkling lights and sparkling decorations, eyes on the pavement as he walks. People scatter around him, knocking his legs with their bags of gifts, occasionally frowning after him when he doesn’t stop to apologise, but really, nothing matters. He never thought he was the kind of person to feel so broken, so alone, and always vowed he’d never let someone get so close. Odagiri Ryu doesn’t _need_ anyone in his life, e is strong and fierce and can do anything he sets his mind to.

Except right now, all his mind wants him to do is to be with Natsu.

He wants to believe that it’s ridiculous to depend on someone else like this, that he’s crazy for needing someone like Natsu, of all people, in his life. He wants to, he tries so hard to believe, but he’s never had much faith in anything anyway.

When he stops, he’s at the bar.

He doesn’t want to go inside, but he can hear music, can hear that voice he’s missed so much, and Ryu’s feet make the decision for him.

It’s a song he’s not heard before, slow and sad and beautiful, and Natsu sings of love lost in the snow, of words that never had the chance to be voiced drifting away on the wind. He paints enchanting pictures with his lyrics, of hands reaching and stretching and grasping at snowflakes but never touching that which they long for the most, of a healing smile and laughing eyes, of a voice like honey and skin like silk. His fingers curl gently around the microphone as he sings, caressing it like a lover, but the moment his eyes open, the sadness in their depths makes Ryu’s breath catch.

Natsu stumbles over the words as he sees him, and holds Ryu’s gaze as he finishes the last verse, the music drawing to a close around him and dying out as the lights go down. By the time the cheers have died down and the lights have come back up, Natsu’s barely a few feet away, and Ryu closes the last of the distance, drawing his lip between his teeth nervously.

He looks at his feet, but he can feel Natsu’s eyes on him as they stand there, silence pressing in around them despite the noise of the bar.

“You look like shit,” Natsu offers eventually, and Ryu snorts.

“Thanks for your vote of confidence.”

He looks up, and Natsu cracks a tiny smile, a spark of hope in the corner of his eye.

“I... I know why you won’t see me.”

Ryu frowns, and Natsu looks like he’s trying not to look smug, “Your students are very talkative.”

If Ryu hadn’t been one of them once, it would baffle him how they could fight so much but band together when being sneaky accomplishes a common goal.

“I’m sorry-” he starts to say, but Natsu shakes his head. He’s quiet for a long moment, before his expression darkens and he hunches his shoulders, the pose Ryu had come to associate with him being nervous.

“What?”

“You know the band...”

“I had noticed them, yeah,” Ryu tries to smile, but Natsu doesn’t get nervous often, and it sets him on edge.

“They want us to... to go to Europe. There’s a contract for us, if we go.”

Ryu didn’t think things could get worse.

He doesn’t like being proved wrong.

“But,” Natsu goes on, sounding more positive as he steps closer still, “I... Your job... You wouldn’t have to see me anymore, and you could still visit...”

Ryu doesn’t see how this is any better than their current situation, but Natsu doesn’t stop talking, so he keeps his mouth shut. For now.

“Or... well... I know you like your job, but... I really missed you and I sort of hope you missed me too, so what if... what if you could do your job and... _and_ come with me?”

Natsu might as well have punched him in the gut for all Ryu feels right now, all the breath rushing from him and his stomach throwing itself into his throat.

“...Come with you? To Europe?”

Natsu nods, and when Ryu doesn’t laugh in his face, carries on, more confident now.

“I’ve got a friend, he’s Japanese, living in England with his daughter. He wants her to be privately tutored, but Tat-chan doesn’t want her to grow up out there and feel like a foreigner when she comes home to Japan, so he’d like a Japanese tutor for her. If we take the contract, he said... He said he’ll pay you whatever you’re earning now, plus twenty percent. And you can live with them until you’ve got enough saved to find somewhere of your own.”

It takes a long, horrible moment of silence for it to properly sink in, and once it does, the first thing Ryu thinks of is Yankumi. Of the strings she’d pulled and the people she’d upset to get him the job, of everything she’d done for him before he’d grown up enough to understand that life couldn’t be solved with your fists.

But then he looks at Natsu, remembers the giddy excitement and calm, gentle contentment he’d felt when they were together, how lonely and desolate he’d felt without him, feels the warmth of the other man’s hand on his arm, the swell of his heart when Natsu’s lips curve in a hesitant smile, eyes alight and shining brightly against the darkness, and thinks about what Yankumi would really say.

She wouldn’t want him to do what the authorities told him to. She wouldn’t want him to give up on something because of his loyalties to her. She’d always encouraged them to push themselves further, to work harder, to do better, to be happier. She’d want him to go where life took him, and follow his heart. She’d want him to be happy.

Then he _really_ thinks about what Natsu had said.

“You haven’t taken the contract?”

Even in the dark, he can see the other man’s cheeks flush.

“...I didn’t want to go without you.”

Ryu doesn’t like public displays of affection, but Natsu’s apartment is entirely too far away when no-one’s really looking at them anyway. It’s been months, but it feels like they were never apart as he presses their lips together, moulding to each other like they were made to be there. Natsu’s hands slide around his waist and Ryu’s fingers trail up and over his neck and through his hair, and when they finally part for breath and Ryu grins his acceptance against Natsu’s mouth, he knows there’s no-one else he’d want to do this with.

Life might be hard for them from here on out, but someone to love makes even the darkest of nights shine with the brightest stars, and as long as they’ve got each other to lean on, Ryu knows Natsu is going to shine up there with the brightest of them.

He’s going to shine on the world, and the world will love him.


End file.
